Live Carp and Missing Kittens, Oh My!

Sometimes you just have to go with what you know.

I know that the only time I like to go to Stella's is for Meze Ora.

The later afternoon means no crowds, $10 carafes of wine (today's was Kourtaki White) and a selection of $4 food.

After complimenting our bartender on her recent Belle magazine cover, we enjoyed fig and goat cheese crostini (sweet and salty, yum!), Greek sausage (with skin so crispy and chewy), roasted beets (with enough garlic to ensure no one else would come near us) and prawns with skordalia (the addicting potato, garlic and lemon puree).

We made out exit stage right just as the dinner crowd began to arrive.

I know that I will laugh hard and hear at least one awe-inspiring story at Secretly Y'All, Tell Me a Story at Balliceaux.

We arrived in time to order dessert before the stories began.

Cinnamon churros came with a mug of thick espresso-flavored sweetened cream and the combination was to die for.

We dipped and then we drank that cream.

With a bottle of Roncier Pinot Noir to keep our thirst slaked for the next five hours, we took front row seats.

Tonight's theme was "Origins," so I was expecting stories of beginnings.

We began with the tale of a guy who found out late that his mother wasn't really his mother and packed a bag to go start a new life.

There was Kendall, a guy with "veritas" tattooed on his arm, who'd suffered through a Pentecostal upbringing and all that entailed as far as finding his own beliefs.

My vote for funniest story of the evening went to "RPCT One."

So you know, RCPT means "random people camping together" and the first one happened in June 2000 for a guy and his friends after high school graduation.

Part of the charm of the story was their 17-year old ignorance, doing things like hiking up Old Rag Mountain with no food or camping supplies.

"There was a point where our trip became 'Deliverance," he deadpanned to much laughter.

And while the bulk of his story was about that first year, he mentioned successive years, too..

Best line: "There were people having sex on a pile of Christian DVDs."

"My Life as a Barge" was about a couple of wanna-be hippies moving to Richmond in the '80s when she got pregnant.

The description of her unlikely midwife was laugh-out-loud worthy - "From the West end, drove a Volvo and had a cute blond bob."

Best line: "It involved a live carp for eating after the delivery."

The last storyteller before the intermission was Lanie, owner of Balliceaux and one of the people who'd gotten Secretly Y'All off the ground in RVA.

She talked of her reluctance to share with a large group ("I'm fine with talking to 3 or 5 people") and praised the value of vulnerability.

I agreed with her completely when she said that storytelling provides a critical resonance that's getting hard to find in a screen-based world.

Best lines: "Stories are data with souls."

The break kicked off with the whistling theme to "Andy of Mayberry" playing, perhaps to remind us of simpler times when storytelling was less of an event and more of a regular activity.

One thing was clear, though, people want to hear stories. And tonight was the second anniversary of S.Y.

When Secretly Y'All began two years ago, the crowds were scant and tonight they were bursting the seams of the back room, many sitting on the floor or standing.

The storytellers after the intermission, unlike those beforehand, are chosen from a hat and anyone in the crowd can put their name in to share a themed story.

Tonight we got a couple of long-time regulars sharing.

Artist Chris Milk was the first name called tonight and he shuffled onstage to talk about his childhood, looking especially handsome in glasses I'd never seen him wear before.

His parents had split shortly after his birth ("I don't think it was my fault") and he recalled a childhood of sharing his time between two homes.

He got many laughs in talking about his brother's threats to him, eventually ending by exhorting the crowd to keep family close.

Best line: I've lived in Richmond most of my life, thank god!"

Colin, one of S.Y.'s organizers, got his name called next and he told a story called, "Daddy was a Baptist but He Didn't Have Balls."

The Daddy in question was that of his high school prom date who did not want his little girl dating, as he put it, someone with "awful white boy dreds."

But Daddy didn't tell Colin he couldn't take  his daughter to prom, Mom did, although Colin managed to talk her into letting him anyway.

Colin -1, Daddy - 0

There was a story called "When Jesus Came" about the storyteller and his sister walking into the woods to entertain themselves in the Ozarks.

When they returned, their mother was ironing and the kittens were missing.

I got the sense that bad things had happened to the kittens in their absence.

And then we came to the kind of story that defines why I go to Secretly Y'All.

"Coming to America" was told by an Hungarian immigrant in flawless English.

The young man told of his family's restless moves from Hungary to Germany (while his Mom was pregnant with him) to LA to Houston to Virginia to Florida and back to Virginia.

He spoke of his citizenship ceremony at age 17 and seeing other immigrants frantically studying for the test.

His gratitude to have ended up here ("where everything is possible') was palpable and I couldn't resist thanking him for sharing after the event ended.

Hearing a stranger's heartfelt story of how his life as an immigrant unfolded is something I'd never have experienced if not for Secretly Y'All.

Case closed.

I know that I will have a swinging good time when I hear the RVA Big Band.

After a walk around the block while S.Y. broke down and the 17-piece big band set up, we took our bottle of wine and set up camp in the back banquette.

Some people from S.Y. lingered and others arrived especially for the big band.

Amid too much shouting, the big band's leader asked, "Hey, you guys wanna hear music?" which I took to mean, "Be quiet."

They started with a Japanese composer, a perfect intro to an eclectic evening's music.

By the second song, a couple was dancing.

I saw a former Floyd Avenue neighbor looking very dapper in a white jacket and jeans, barely containing his urge to shake his groove thing.

Later he came back to join us sitting on top of the back of the banquette.

"I've had a dirty old man crush on the baritone sax player for years now," he joked.

It's true, it's tough to resist the tiniest woman playing the largest sax and the largest man playing the smallest sax.

We heard a composition by the alto sax player, a piece that showed the influences of the past 40 years that could be woven into the big band sound.

In this case, it sounded like psychedelic big band with a guitar solo that would have stopped a '70s prog-rocker in his tracks.

As many times as I've seen the RVA big band, never had they sounded together or better than tonight.

The drummer was new and stellar, but also, the drummer, keyboard player and guitarist were now situated on the far left of the brass instead of buried behind them and the sound difference was startling.

"You might want to grab someone you love for the next song," the bandleader told us. "This is 'My One and Only."

And while no one grabbed me, there were some couples dancing during the achingly beautiful love song.

The band did a kick-ass take on Steely Dan's "Aja," taking it in new and different directions that swung hard.

Although the crowd had dwindled by the end (it was a school night, after all), the band played no less enthusiastically for the smaller crowd than it had for the packed chatterers.

A musician friend had come tonight for the first time and I was eager to hear his take on the band.

"Didn't you see my reactions?" he asked, grinning goofily. I had and he'd been having a ball, I could tell. "They make me want to go home and start practicing so I can put my name on the list to play."

Translation: he thought they were as amazing as I did, only he knew what he was talking about.

And when all was said and done and we walked out into the crisp night air, I'd heard all kinds of stories from strangers that I had no business hearing.

But as long as they tell, I will go listen. And with any luck, stay and swing afterwards.